Shut up, Ellen...

If you read this blog regularly you might have noticed my Petfinder link that advertised adoptable dogs from the Mutts and Moms rescue. I chose this particular rescue to display on my blog because they place the very types of dogs that often get overlooked and go unadopted – mixed breeds and mommy dogs that have recently had a litter of pups. Martha, the wonder dog, is a mixed breed. She sat in a shelter for over two months with few visits before I ultimately adopted her. One of the things that caused me to rush into my decision was that the shelter told me her number was about to come up. Martha was lucky, but many dogs are not. If you scroll down, you’ll see that Mutts and Moms no longer appears on Petfinder.com. In recent days they’ve had to effectively shut down due to threats.


Mark, Martha's Brother

I am normally a big fan of Ellen Degeneres. She tries to do good things and we share the same taste in comfortable shoes, but I find her actions over the past few days to be simply deplorable.

The basic story is that on September 20th (less than a month ago) Ellen and her family adopted a dog through Mutts and Moms only to find out that the dog was not a good fit for her home. At the time of the adoption, Ellen signed a contract stating that if for any reason the dog did not work out, she would return the dog to the shelter. This is standard language in most pet adoption contracts. I signed a similar statement when Martha came to live with me. The reason shelters include this language is for the safety of the dog. As we all know from the recent Michael Vick scandal, not everyone has the best intentions in regards to the treatment of animals. That the shelter requires you to bring the dog back is practically a service to the adopter who ends up with an unwanted dog.

According to Ellen, she spent over three thousand dollars having someone else train the dog so that it could acclimate to its new surroundings. (That could be part of the problem right there. When you adopt a dog, the best thing to do is to bond directly with it and do training together – not pay someone else to do it for you. An owner needs training as much as the dog. Spending money on a dog does not equal love or effort.)

At any rate, after a mere two weeks Ellen decided the dog had "too much energy and [was] too rambunctious." (I think Ellen is now saying it didn't get along with her cats.) Anyone who's owned a rescue dog knows that they don't start out perfect. Some have lived on the streets, been abused/neglected, or shuttled from home to home. The lack of continuity in their lives sometimes causes behavioral issues that can be very stressful for the new owners as well as the dogs.

If you read the posts from last April, you'll remember that Martha had her problems. She'd go for long walks without a potty break only to come through the door and take a whiz in my living room. She had severe separation anxiety and cried whenever I got out of her sight. She tagged so closely that I tripped over her constantly. She chewed. She destroyed. Her energy and nervous behavior was tremendous. Today, she's a great dog, but it took over three months (and lots of love, patience, and work) for her to fully adjust and feel comfortable in her new environment.


Cutie, cutie, cutie!

Instead of returning the dog to the shelter as her contract specified, Ellen gave it away to a different family. The shelter, upon learning this, went and retrieved the dog. I’m not saying I agree with what the rescue group did. There are quite a few rescues with such strict standards that you sometimes wonder if they are doing the right thing. When looking for Martha I remember one rescue made adopters sign a contract saying that they would only feed the dog certain brands of dog food. I thought that was a little extreme, and as such, I chose not to seek a dog from that rescue.

Maybe it’s just the future attorney in me, but I don’t feel particularly sympathetic to Ellen. She didn’t do her homework. She signed a contract and then she violated the terms. She paid someone else to train the dog rather than make a personal effort. When things didn’t (immediately) work out, she dumped the dog, and now she’s crying foul. She had the gall to use her show and her name as a vehicle to malign the Mutts and Moms, going on the air sobbing and begging M&M to return the dog to its new home.

Mutts and Moms removed the dog from the new home due to the ages of the children in the family. Ellen claims not to have read the contract (even though this was the second dog she received from M&M that she didn't want) nor known of the return policy and/or rules regarding children. (I remember from viewing M&M’s website that it was very clear they didn’t want small dogs in homes with small children.) I don’t agree with that policy, but it is definitely the shelter’s prerogative to make that demand.

Mutts and Moms has now deactivated their website because they’ve been inundated with vicious threats and emails as a result of Ellen’s actions. Independent rescues like Mutts and Mom provide a great need. Often times these places have contacts at the local pounds and are called when a dog is near euthanasia. They rescue as many good dogs as they can, farm them out to foster home volunteers, and typically operate on donations. They give dogs like Martha a second chance. For the last couple of days, Ellen’s been pleading for the shelter to return the dog to the second family saying, “This dog had a home and now it has no home.”

Shut up, Ellen. You want to talk about dogs with no homes? Every day that you keep whining is another day that Mutts and Moms can’t place the other dozens of dogs that they’re trying to save. In addition, hoards of people are now saying horrible things about dog rescues with stringent standards. The fact remains that if these rescues didn't exist thousands and thousands more animals would be euthanized each year. We all feel bad for the little girls involved, but you've taken a bad situation and made it worse. This was your fault, and if you didn’t agree with the terms you should have gone somewhere else. Stop making little mutts like Martha suffer for your actions.